Why did I have a problem with this fascinating book? Because, when I started I did not know how deep the Crazifornia rot ran in the state, nor was I aware quite how infectious the insanity is when it comes to the rest of America. To keep up with the deluge of evidence proving that California is indeed crazy, I repeatedly stopped reading so that I could scratch out little notes to myself: “California’s all-powerful bureaucrats are an army of Leftist Rube Goldberg’s with guns.” “This is a perfect example of voter credulity and bureaucratic overreach.” “California takes a legislatively created energy crisis and makes it worse with more legislation.” The scariest note I wrote was also the shortest: “As California goes, so goes the nation.”

That last note is why you should read the book — and give it to friends and family — in the days remaining before the election. California isn’t just a basket case, it’s a proselytizing basket case, with its environmental zealots, community organizers, and wishful economic thinkers aggressively selling their ideas to other states and to the federal government. As Laer demonstrates, while the recession is slowing the other forty-nine states from buying into California’s governing philosophy, the Obama government is an enthusiastic supporter. Another four years of Obama, and California won’t be the only bankrupt crazy place in America.

Unlike the federal government’s swift, Obama-driven belly flop into bankruptcy, California actually has a long and occasionally honorable history of Progressive politics. Crazifornia explains that back in the early years of the last century it was California Progressives who helped bankroll the movement across the United States. These early ideologues were actually fighting some legitimate battles, most notably against San Francisco’s utterly corrupt alliance between railroad moguls and local government. Take away these honorable battles, though, and you learn that the early California Progressives were exactly the same as today’s California’s Progressives: they were the rich and the educated, which meant that they could fund their ideas and pass them on to subsequent generations.

Because California had long been blessed with enormous natural resources and a vital, growing population, it had the wealth to keep the impractical Progressive dream going for decades. It could abs0rb the enormous financial and human losses from almost heroic bureaucratic ineptitude (Chapter 5); laws and regulations that suck the life out of both new and established businesses (Chapter 6); ridiculous educational experiments and an all-powerful teachers union that has little interest in student well-being and education (Chapter 7);* environmentalism run amok (Chapter 8); and public sector unions and pensions that have managed to go wherever one ends up when “amok” is a distant memory (Chapter 9).

Lately, though, things haven’t been going so well for California. Part of the problem is the national recession. The other part is the fact that California’s collection of Progressives, Environmentalists, Educators, and Reporters, whom Laer collectively christens “the PEER axis,” have destroyed the state’s ability to tap into her resources, both natural and human. Take, for example, the Prop. 50 fiasco, which is one of a huge subset of fiascos generated by a California citizen’s right to vote on legislative ballot initiatives.

The PEER axis bankrolled and sold California voters on the Water Quality, Supply and Safe Drinking Water Projects Act (aka Prop. 50), an initiative that added $3.4 billion of indebtedness to California’s already overburdened economy. Thanks to fine print in the newly enacted legislation, the Ocean Protection Council, which has nothing to do with drinking water, managed to get its hands on Prop. 50 money. Lunacy ensued:

So, what are Californians getting for their money, which costs them $227 million a year in interest payments? For starters, the bureaucrats that serve as the council’s staff engineered a quarter-million-dollar grant to a Portland, Oregon outfit called Ecotrust to develop a pilot program for a seafood market at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf that would be filled with “regionally sourced” seafood. Talk about inept. Any visitor to Fisherman’s Wharf can tell you free market enterprise has already filled the place with fishmongers hawking regionally sourced seafood. That doesn’t keep Sacramento’s eco-bureaucrats from subsidizing an Oregon group’s seafood stand on the Wharf, even if it has nothing to do with the clean water voters thought they were voting for when they passed Prop. 50.

If the Prop. 50 economic adventure was just a single boondoggle, one could laugh the whole thing off, despite the high price tag. The problem is that this vignette — voters being sold a bill of goods, only to see legislators, bureaucrats, unions, environmentalists, and carpetbaggers waste the money — is repeated over and over again at both the state and county level. For example, in the normal world, a prison doctor too incompetent even to provide the basic care accorded prisoners is fired. In California, the Department of Corrections pays him $400,000 annually to work in the prison mail room.

Then there’s the California Courts’ new integrated case management system. Originally budgeted for $260 million, the current cost estimate is now $1.9 billion, with another billion needed after completion so that the system can actually be deployed (seven years late). That’s going to be some integrated case management system, right? Noooo, not so. After two of the largest counties that participated in a system trial serious contemplated pulling out entirely:

An audit by the California State Auditor recommended that the whole CCMS endeavor be stopped and reconsidered because it is so far behind schedule, so far over budget and so at risk of quality problems when it finally is implemented.

In the private sector, heads would roll. In California, this is government business as usual.

Mere inefficiency isn’t the only problem. There’s also significant corruption. One notable example of this corruption endangered the lives of thousands of Bay Area commuters. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed a section of the Oakland Bay Bridge. Almost twenty-three years later, the California Department of Transportation is still working on rebuilding the bridge. (To be fair to the men who do the very difficult and sometimes dangerous labor, it took almost twenty years before they even started construction. Caltrans was too busy dealing with regulations, environmentalists, and unions to start the work any sooner.)

Caltrans assigned one of its own, Duane Wiles, to do the seismic testing on the new bridge span. In an area bounded by both the Loma Prieta and San Andreas faults, this is a very responsible position. Wiles wasn’t up to the job:

A Sacramento Bee investigative report found that Wiles failed to properly conduct tests on the Bay Bridge’s new span and dozens of other bridges, fabricated results on at least three Caltrans projects, often discarded his raw data files and inflated his overtime pay. Perhaps all this was merely the side effects of personal problems Wiles was experiencing at the time, as he faced felony charges for a sex crime against a child.

That’s bad. Here’s worse: Alert employees had given Caltrans notice about Wiles’ ineptitude three years before a whistleblower approached the Sacramento Bee. Caltrans did nothing. Then, when the reporter approached Caltrans asking about Wiles, Caltrans’ first response wasn’t to fire Wiles, but to move him to a less visible job.

Again, the Wiles’ adventure wasn’t unique. If you take this bureaucratic instinct to protect its own, and combine it with an environmental zealotry that actively seeks to return California to a pastoral, pre-industrial (and very poor) age, and you end up with the sorry history of a regulatory decision that, when it goes into effect, will make trucking prohibitively expensive in California.

There’s nothing unusual in California about a pro-environment, anti-business regulation. What is unusual is that trucking regulation was based upon provably false data. Even more unusual is the fact that the California Air Resources Board, which promulgated the regulation, knew that the data was false, termed the falsity a “distraction,” passed the regulation, and suspended the malfeasor for a mere 60 days. Balancing those 60 days out, however, was UCLA’s decision to fire the professor of epidemiology who exposed the fraud. UCLA reached this decision because the professor’s work was “not aligned” with his department’s academic mission. (The professor has appealed that decision and is still working.)

Crazifornia describes a dysfunctional state, one that can best be summed up as a banana republic governed, not by oligarchs, but by a toxic mix of environmental fascists, greedy unions, corrupt or ideology-driven legislators, and all-powerful bureaucrats. But before you get too angry at these jackals, perhaps you should reserve your wrath for the ones who truly deserve it: the California voters.

Despite a dying economy, a feckless government, and dangerous corruption, voters are undeterred. It sometimes seems as if all 100% of the 47% who won’t be voting for Romney are voting in California. If you don’t know what California voters look like, I certainly do:

It’s probably too late to save California. Laer tries to inject some optimism at the end of each chapter and in the conclusion to his book he notes that voter patterns might finally be changing (although recent polling data makes me less optimistic). As cities go bankrupt, gas and food prices rise, businesses bail, and the California middle class becomes poor, some of the voters might finally be growing up. Whether they can reverse California’s downward trend remains questionable. Laer has some excellent suggestions for getting the political pendulum unstuck from its far Left position, but it will be ugly, and it will have to be carried out by people who have been subjected to one hundred years of California’s Progressive propaganda.

When you read Laer’s book (and I hope this review has convinced you to do so), you will see that it is a profound morality tale about what happens when America’s green, anti-capitalist Progressivism gains the upper hand in government. So remember, only you can prevent the Crazifornication of America.

_____________________

* In the interests of full disclosure, Laer interviewed me regarding some of my own experiences as a public school student in San Francisco, and he includes parts of those interviews in Chapter 7. Plus, I get an awfully nice thank you in the Acknowledgements section.

Bookworm is a writer living in Marin, California. Her personal blog is Bookworm Room.

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1.
RWE

Geeze, I love Califronia. Lived there 10 years. Bought two houses there. Had the greatest job of my life there. Got my pilot’s license there. Still have many close friends there. The company I work for now – when I work – is HQed there.

And it was my favorite place to visit when I did not live there. Was.

Last trip was in August 2001. And I got overCaliforniaed. For one thing I did too much driving, too much time on the freeways, where I inevitably sat waiting for a wreck to be cleared no matter where or when I went. And also observed traffic that was explicable only if I were in the midst of a gigantic stunt driving competition. But when I drove through a small desert town with almost no traffic, looking at a map, I got pulled over by a CHP and lectured about how it was such a dangerous practice. Poor guy, I guess the freeways were too hazardous for him.

A guy who lives up the street from me, retired from a company in Kansas, told me how he grew so exasperated with the state bureaucracy a few years ago that he finally shut down the entire California division of the company and moved it back to Kansas.

I won’t be back out there without a very good reason. I just hope they don’t all move to the east coast when things go tango uniform.

I just hope they don’t all move to the east coast when things go tango uniform.
–RWE

I just hope you get what you deserve when the mob from the East Coast who wrecked a once-solidly Republican Golden State moves back to where they came from (accompanied by their spawn and grand-spawn).

The CIO in AFL-CIO stands for Congress of Industrial Organizations and was the old home of the very leftist, often openly communist “industrial” unions that sought to organize whole plants or industries rather than trades and crafts, e.g., the United Auto Workers and the International Association of Machinists. Because of their prevalence in the California war industries and later the aerospace industries, the CIO was once not so jokingly said to stand for California Improved Okies.

While it is true that carpet baggers like Pelosi and Boxer have done their bit to helps us destroy Krazyfornia, it will not fly to place even half the blame on them. The natives must know that it is THEIR FAULT!!!
I know because I was born in San Francisco in 1959, never lived more than 25 miles away from the neo-Victorian flat where I was born on Broderick Street, and I’ve talked to way too many fellow natives who have said “Good Riddance” at hearing the news that yet another business has fled from this communist shithole.
No, my friend, the problem is the moral depravity of the people who already live here. Degenerate, reprobate, corrupt to the core, there is no way Krazyfornia can avoid catastrophe, but thanks be to God, enough of a catastrophe is probably what Krazyfornia needs to clear the decks to start over again, sadder but wiser.

I’m an Independent, living in California. My voice is (sometimes) heard on Proposition votes, but most of the time who I pick for any State or National office doesn’t win.

But I have hope.

The Public Policy Institute reported in August 2012 the registered voters in California labeled “Decline to State” has reached 21.3 %. And even some Democrats (a few) are still able to see a train wreck in motion.

I have lived in CA most of my life and some things are different. I think it reflects the “anything goes” values of society in general. Here are a couple of issues that bug me, but I’ll bet it’s the same everywhere:
Customer service SUCKS. People have NO MANNERS, NO PERSONALITY, and they don’t have any idea of what they are selling. Most do not seem to CARE if they give their best or not. Professionalism has given way to familiarity. My Grandmother used to say, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
Our perspective changes as we get older. I used to be a fast driver, now I stay in the 3rd lane and drive 65 like an old lady. Many Narcissists on the road; have they ever heard of the word “merge?” That does not mean “ME FIRST.” Often I will gesture to someone to “go first, please.” Do they reciprocate? Rarely. Mindless, texting, not aware they are PART of the big picture, not the picture revolving around them in their speedy MiniCoopers, etc.
Remember the old saying ( I am full of them) “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” Parents, take the time to teach your children some manners, respect, social skills. Do your job right the first time. Don’t worry about your own social life. You will have one again after your children are raised well. Then they will honor you by living a decent life.
Maybe this was not the place to say these things. Hope you don’t mind.
I love California, and many cities are still beautiful, being renovated, new proud owners of homes.
Don’t waste time. Get your education, discipline yourself, & save money.
Think of others, form good habits, speak the truth, follow your heart.
Lastly, PLEASE vote in some decent Fiscal Conservatives to California. We need major help.

It’s too late for my state, CO. The CA locusts have swarmed here by the 1,000s for years. They’ve turned a once solid conservative state into a mini me CA. Having abandoned CA because of it’s destructive policies, they come here and vote for the same damn thing-go figure huh?

Now we’ve got a far left gov and 2 of the most worthless senators in Congress-there was a time when even when we elected a dem gov, he was pro business.

The same thing happened in New Hampshire. The lefties stink up a state, in this case Massachusetts, find they can’t live with their stink and escape to a neighboring state and start the process again. New Hampshire, while not conservative since the old Yankees ruled the state, was solidly libertarian for decades. The fact that Obama easily took the state in 08 tells you all you need to know.

The same is true here in Nevada. They flee California, settle here and vote the same way they always have. Nevada was once a conservative state, not anymore. Witness our esteemed Senator Reid and his invisible man friend who whispers to him at night.

I’ve lived in Nevada for 13 years (not from California!), and to be fair about it, my impression in my first few years was that the Californians moving in were much more conservative–the ones trying to escape the rot of which we are all too familiar. However, I do agree that the 2004-06 period brought in a wave of precisely the type you describe.

On the other hand, the state has been LOSING population since 2009, so the point is moot at the present time.

You don’t know the meaning of hell until you are hired by a private business in CA as an owner of a “foreign corp” (which is simply an American corp that is incorporated in a different state.)
About every 3 days, you will receive a bill for some sort of strange fee, license, permit…every reason imaginable! Because these govt letters are ambiguous in all areas except the $ amount you’re to submit, you will be forced to call the CA Sec of State for clarification. This phone call is an adventure like no other…always handled by an OBVIOUSLY previous welfare recipient with the working knowledge of a seven year old.
But while in CA, I saw the huge overpaid salaries & benefits of CA govt workers…and then I understood.

Romney will sell Calipornia to the Chinese after he is elected. For enough money to pay down the debt. The Chinese will then drill for OIL. The Environmentalists won’t say a word. It will also solve the illegal immigrant problem. Ever hear of anyone sneaking over the border INTO China?

Great post, great book by the look of it, but – are things really so different in any other blue states? Or in any red states, for that matter? Or in Europe or China, much less Iran, Russia, or Somalia?

The Manhattan Institute just released a study, The Great California Exodus, that shows California, the bluest state, has lost the greatest number of people – enough over the last ten years to double the size of Oregon. The other leading states in population loss are overwhelming blue. The states gaining population are overwhelmingly red. Curious, isn’t it?

Hardly. I’ve been trying to pick out my own landing zone. Prop 38 might be the chaser for me, for a lot of others too, a lot of businesses, push the place right into the hole it’s been circling for a long, long time.

Unless you can prove a 20 year conservative voting record at both the state and federal level and own a business (but don’t plan on bringing any employees with you except those who meet the above requirement), have a seven figure bank account that you’re moving to a local savings and loan and own at least 5 firearms, DO NOT set foot in Arizona.

MEXIFORNIA by Victor Davis Hanson is also a must read on Crazifornia also…

In my travels… Cailfornia liberals have also infiltrated Montana..and Mass/Ct/NY/NJ retired school teachers…aka liberals ..progressives what have you…have destroyed the once self reliant and hardy Vermont and turned it into a socialist nirvarna…

Josh wrote: “Great post, great book by the look of it, but – are things really so different in any other blue states? Or in any red states, for that matter? Or in Europe or China, much less Iran, Russia, or Somalia?”

Greetings from the Republic of Texas. The majority of people drawn to public service will always want to expand the size and role of government. The secret to avoiding Californication is a strong state constitution written by Jacksonian individualists determined to limit government power. The current Texas constitution was written in reaction to having government imposed from the outside during the Reconstruction Era. One key is bills spending money have to pass an additional 4th step to become law. The Comptroller, a separate elected official, rules on the budget impact of a bill before it can go to the Governor.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Constitution
“Section 49a requires the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts to certify the amount of available cash on hand and anticipated revenues for the next biennium; no appropriation may exceed this amount (except in cases of emergency and then only with a 4/5ths vote of both chambers), and the Comptroller is permitted to reject and return to the Legislature any appropriation in violation of this requirement.”

There are also a bunch of constitutional provisions which severely limit the state legislature from imposing new taxes at the state level. This tends to push government down to the local level.

The greatest part of the TX Constitution is the limitation on the number of days per 2-years session that they can be in-session.
I’ll move there when they correct the error they made in those numbers.

I live in the People’s Repulic of Maryland and we are pushing California for stupid. Our Governor Martin O’Malley is first counsin to his Irish twin Barack O’Bama and has his lips firmly attached to the Great Ones tushy at all times. If it wasn’t for the flood of US Government money flooding into the Maryland counties surrounding Washington,DC we would be as broke as California. Now you know that the real problem with California is the “gimmie something for free” mentality of the people who stay there and vote themselves more and more “goodies”. You have that same cr@p in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Washington DC, Washington state,Oregon and probably a couple Democratic hell holes I missed.

Parkinson’s Law is like so many observable things that are just true enough to be credible but overlook that which underlies the observable. A better law with government is: Things cost however much is appropriated to pay for them. Conservatives/Republicans decry the expansion of government by faceless, nameless unelected bureaucrats because that is what they observe, but it overlooks the fact that bureaucrats cannot expand government. The head of a government agency cannot expand that agency unless the legislative body gives him the money to do it. The head of a government agency cannot expand the power of government unless the legislative body gives him the authority to do it.

Inside the bureaucracy itself both money and power tend to be a zero sum game; bureaucrats resist another bureaucrat getting more money and power because it lessens the money and power available to them. When I was head of my agency I could get anything I wanted from the Legislature just for the asking. What I had trouble with was getting past my own management who saw making my part of the agency more powerful as making their part of the agency less powerful. Appointees often find themselves justifying their budget requests to non-appointee budget weenies who hate political managers out of envy or because of ideological differences.

Legislatures often write sloppy, generalized laws to make some constituent happy and then delegate all authority for implementation to the executive agency. Sometimes this is just laziness or ignorance on the part of the legislative body. Sometimes it is willfulness on the part of whomever is backing the bill. They tell legislators that the subject matter is so complex that the details are best left to the “experts” at the agency. Legislators are often fine with that because few of them like that detail stuff anyway, but what it really means is that it is much easier to lobby one head of an executive agency than it is to get 50% +1 in a legislative body.

In California’s case they were once so rich that they developed the mentality that there was no limit to what they could do or what they could spend. Throw in almost complete unionization of the workforce with almost unlimited bargaining and political powers held by those unions – far more than even most other unionized states – and the increasing power of a parasitical underclass and you have a prescription for economic and political disaster. It is inconceivable to the political class in CA that they’d not have enough money to do whatever they want to do. It is inconceivable to the Democrat constituencies in CA that the government would not have the money to give they whatever they want. I usually resist the notion that in government things have to break before you can fix them but I’m afraid CA will have to break, as in cities burning break, before there is any hope of fixing it.

I agree. That is the day when either Cali, Illinois, NY will all realize they have to pay for all their stuff in their state with their state’s funds and not with everyone else’s funds or that is the beginning of the break up of the US. If they are not made to pay for their own costs, then whatever state is the most irresponsible is basically writing all of the laws for the entire nation and doing so, to borrow a well used phrase by “taxation without representation” and that won’t work. All it does is start a contest on which state can be the most irresponsible and then demand a bailout for their gold plated streets….

The only way to prevent that is for the Numero Uno Washington Pol to Declare: “The taxpayers of Rhode Island, Vermont and South Dakota WILL NOT be Bailing Out Kalifornya, New York, or any other of the other States.”

DC has also been paying our ER bills from Medicare since the Bush era.

If we do not defeat the right of unions this year to deduct money from paychecks, it’s all over. Grandpa Moonbeam signed that law in his first term, and it’s fitting and just he should preside over the final destruction of his state. He got one-party rule enabled by all the union (taxpayer) money from union dues, and now we see the sad results.

Californians understand perfectly well they’re headed for the rocks. They know just what’s gonna happen. But just as with the housing bubble, they’re betting it will happen to somebody else. Meantime, they want their piece of the action, however preposterous, however crooked.

CalPers/CalStars has done so well in managing the funds for gov’t pensions, now it’s going to “lend” its expertise to pensions for private-sector workers – ’cause it needs a new source of funding to keep those gov’t pensions somewhat solvent.

Some people hope it won’t get ugly, but, I can’t figure out how anything gets fixed unless and until it gets totally ugly. Like when the only way to save your life is to cut the gangrenous limb off; a real bummer, but better than letting the poison kill you.

From the article:
# Hien Tran Fraud: Hien Tran lied about having a PHD from U.C. Davis but really purchased his degree at a diploma mill. Tran was the project coordinator and lead author of a report entitled “Methodology for Estimating Premature Deaths Associated with Long-term Exposure to Fine Airborne Particulate Matter in California.” This report was the main support document of a draconian regulation proposed by the CARB that would cost California diesel users billions of dollars, a cost that eventually the consumer would pay for in higher food, construction and transportation costs. These costs would be incurred in the retrofitting of almost all diesel engines for on- or off-road, even relatively new ones, with new pollution controls for the sole purpose of limiting particulate matter as small as 2.5 microns (PM2.5). Although there have been some epidemiological studies in the past that claim there is a health risk, those studies were highly speculative and done with poor data. In fact, there is a significant study that says that PM2.5 is not a health risk in California.

Tran’s problems started with the completion of the first draft report when Dr. S. Stanley Young, the assistant director of Bioinformatics at the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, came to his attention. Dr. Young fired off a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, writing in part, “I note that none of the authors are professional statisticians. Some are trained in epidemiology. It is useful to know that the track record of epidemiologists in the use of statistics to make claims that are reproducible is very poor. Their claims fail to replicate 80-90 percent of the time (Ioannidis, JAMA, 2005). Their recommendations, most likely wrong, are projected to be very costly.

As punishment for his lie, Tran was suspended for 60 days and took a pay cut. He still works at CARB.

As Bookworm wrote, I dedicate a lot of pages to CARB, telling the Tran story and several others at a level of detail not often reported elsewhere. Mary Nichols, CARB chair, is the most dangerous woman in California, and quite possibly the most dangerous person, period. Her agency is emblematic of how California has ceded power to technocratic ideologues, another strong theme in Crazifornia.

The AQMD there found the Pacific Ocean to be in noncompliance when it came to airborne particulate matter in their county. Not finding a suitable court in which to sue the Pacific, they decided that everyone else would have to pay for the ocean’s massive environmental crimes.

But later a study came out that showed that offshore oil and gas drilling had reduced air and water pollution in the county by sucking up the stuff and bottling it before it oculd leak out naturally. Last I heard, they had not yet began payments to the oil industry to compensate them for the improved air quality but I am sure that will happen any day now.

I am a native Californian, moved in 2004. Sad to see what is happening to California but there is no stopping it. Progressives are just nuts and they will rule until they ruin it. We plan to go back after the riots and the tar and feathering. With the media blackout on California I rarely get a glimpse of what is going on unless there is another bankrupt city or Gov. Brown doesn’t guess the budget right. So sad….

Texas, where I live, is often thought of as the diametric opposite of California. Actually, this is true only to a certain extent. What is not different is the insanity of the politicians. Texas, however, has a system that has (so far) managed to reign in their excesses. Our Legislature only meets once every two years. The Governor is mostly a figurehead position with little power. (The real power lies with the Lt. Gov. and the Comptroller). Our legislators are paid $4000/yr with a per diem when they are in session, which means they make their living at being something besides politicians. In a lot of ways, the system matters as much as the people in it.

Interesting Tom, I am not a fan of term limits necessarily. But like Texas, make it so it’s just not worth doing unless you actually care. Eliminate, retirement, health care only when you’re in office, etc.

Darrell Issa is my Congressman, he’s rich, doesn’t care what the opposition thinks, has a solid Republican district, so he has just been tearing it up in Congress.

In the days when California was solidly Republican, we had a part time legislature, like Texas. They met for a full term every other year. The intervening year was for budget matters only, no legislation. This was changed by Jesse Unruh, who was called “Big Daddy”, he weighed 300 pounds and was known for saying, “money is the mother’s mile of politics.” I met him toward the end of his life and he was a bright guy but he destroyed the state. I hope the book mentions him as much of our troubles began with him and Jerry Brown.

Texas, where I live, is often thought of as the diametric opposite of California. Actually, this is true only to a certain extent. What is not different is the insanity of the politicians. Texas, however, has a system that has (so far) managed to reign in their excesses. Our Legislature only meets once every two years. The Governor is mostly a figurehead position with little power. (The real power lies with the Lt. Gov. and the Comptroller). Our legislators are paid $4000/yr with a per diem when they are in session, which means they make their living at being something besides politicians. In a lot of ways, the system matters as much as the people in it.

Odd how in Virginia where we effectively outlaw public unions we don’t really have these problems. (I am not for effectively outlawing them be the way but for a total ban and making public employee strikes felonies for the leaders and misdemeanors for the followers.) I do like the Texas system for controlling legislatures great idea only have the vermin meet every two years. Since I would love to see 99% of government dissolved every two years seems like a good start at at least controlling the idiots.

In a SHTF situation the neighboring states might well erect barriers along their borders (certainly on I-5, I-8, I-10 and I-15) to keep the Californicators penned up. State police and civilian militia will be authorized to shoot escapees on sight. Nevada floating militia will patrol Lake Tahoe and send California “boat people” to a watery grave.

BTW, this is exactly what citizens in several New Orleans suburbs did post-Katrina when the black hordes, having already plundered the Big Sleazy, tried to loot their towns.

When it’s every man for himself the last thing you can afford to do is give a sleazy underhanded Krazyfornia POS any kind of a break. You’ve got to stop us now before we destroy your state the same way we destroyed Krazyfornia. Don’t cry for us because we deserve much worse than you can give us.

And yet the Crazy dysfunctional coalition Bookworm describes is the very coalition hoping for national and international control selling the idea that social systems like economies, schools, neighborhoods, cities, entire countries, and people themselves can be redesigned. You just have to get the vision right and power and you can get the future desired is the nonsense being peddled by Bela Banathy or Rianne Eisler and others. And education, K-12 and higher ed, is the Transformational vehicle of choice because the statists have total control, our money, and virtually every future voter passes through for an extended period of time.

For sheer idiocy the comments of Assemblyman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) following the announcements that Comcast and Campbells were leaving California as fast as possible is hard to top: “It is unfortunate that Campbell’s has chosen to close their oldest plant and in the process lay-off 700 employees. As the economy slowly improves, closures like Campbell’s and Comcast here in our own backyard, reminds us all that unemployment is still at over 10 percent and we have a long way to go until a full economic recovery.”

WTF? Campbells is closing California and New Jersey production sites because it makes no economic sense to invest in states that are impossible to do business in – and Comcast is just moving the hell out – this has nothing to do with unemployment Mr. Dickinson you flaming moron – this is what gets elected here in California – morons electing morons.

Of course the Democrat/Obama’s porkulous “stimulous” bill wsa all about delaying economic reality for fiscally stupid states like California and Illinois (and cities, too) which, regardless of their preferences, will be scaling back and changing their employee manpower and retirement formulas going forward. The HOPE of the bill was that in the year or two that the 800 Billion dollars bought, the overall economy would pick up and bounce back enough to allow those states and cities to continue business as usual, trading Democratic votes for jobs and benefits to overpaid, underperforming and sometimes useless public sector employees. This does not mean ALL public sector employees are useless, and knee-jerk responses in that direction will fail to impress me.

watched this documentary on bees the other day. it seems they have these African bees and they mixed them with cape bees. the African bees have a reputation for producing a lot of honey. the cape bees would invade a colony and the African bees would attack them as outsiders. some would get past and start laying eggs, a function of queen bees, the African bees would no longer reject them because they were now homegrown from the colony. they would be clone queen bees and the hive would feed them. the African queen bees would kill off all the other queens, the cape bees would not. as the hive would fill with these (entitlement) queens the drones would not be replaced and so the hive would eventually collapse, and the cape bees would then fly off and invade another colony and repeat the process. this sounds like what is happening in California. cape bee people

That may well happen after the next civil war, the one that starts after the “blue” states try to stick the “red” states (via Washington) with their massive bankruptcies. The bankruptcies are coming; maybe the first shot will come from Fort Sumter in “red” S.C. against a “blue” bankruptcy/currency-destroying bill in Congress. It will be the war of the realists against the fantasists.

While the 1st Civil War could never have occurred without the slavery issue, the modern canon grossly overlooks the role of federal spending for “internal improvements” in the Northern states particularly in leading to Southern discontent. There are only three real differences between the US and CS Constitutions: the CS Constitution explicitly permits involuntary servitude, has a President with a six year term and no succession right, and it explicitly prohibits CS government spending for internal improvements in the states.

* The Confederate president had line-item veto authority.
* Each bill in Congress could pertain to only one subject, which had to be specified in its title. IOW, no unrelated riders or amendments allowed.
* All appropriations bills had to state the exact amount and purpose for the spending. No additional payments could be made afterward. So no cost overruns of the sort that have plagued US government contracts, especially military.
* A federal judge or other officer whose jurisdiction did not cross state lines could be impeached by 2/3 of that state’s legislature. (Conviction and removal still required 2/3 of the federal Senate.)
* After a short grace period, the postal system was required to be self-sufficient.
* Protective tariffs were forbidden.
* Congress could appropriate money by majority vote only if the funding was requested by the President or a member of his Cabinet. Congress could spend on its own only if 2/3 of both houses agreed. (So much for pork-barrel spending.)
* If the Senate rejected a federal appointment, the President could not turn around and give that person a recess appointment later when Congress was not in session.
* While slavery was allowed, importation of slaves from overseas was strictly forbidden. Jefferson Davis’ only veto was of a bill which in his opinion weakened that prohibition. That veto was sustained.
* The constitution was easier to amend. Any three state legislatures could call for a convention, and only 2/3 of the state legislatures were required to ratify whatever amendment the convention proposed. No doubt the writers were looking ahead to the inevitable end of slavery.

We left the So. Cal coast in 2007 just before the bubble burst for TX. It took about two years to snap out the liberally programmed dementia and see the values of conservatism and I can’t even talk with my family anymore about politics. When I meet new people from CA I let them know to check their liberalism at the New Mexico border because folks don’t take too kindly to their lack of a morale compass and value system. Moving out of that state was the best move we ever made and the timing couldn’t have been better. This was a great report on the exodus and you can see for decades CA has been bleeding working families and trading them for foreign immigrants. There’s no way this can sustain. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_71.htm#.UGXQ7ZjA9Lc

The really sad part about this is if Obama is re-elected, the next bailout will be the cities and states run by Dmeocrats that are in deep deficit. So everyone will be paying for California’s liberal insanity.

I fear that replacing Obama will not be enough. The Federal Reserve has gone beyond purchasing treasuries to purchasing MBS(mortgage backed securities), the very thing that caused Lehman Brothers to crash and burn. Once they have monetized those, I suspect municipal debt will be next, and what better places to start than with California, Illinois, and New York?

Since the Federal Reserve is a private group made up of unelected bankers, I fear that nobody will be given the option to vote against it.

I am old enough to remember when California represented all that was best in America. It is still a Golden State to visit, as long as you stay in the affluent areas, but it now also represents what is worst in America. Notch one up for the public-employee unions, whose audacious greed has had California’s pusillanimous politicians on the run for decades now.

I can speak from personal experience on one of the topics discussed. The author says, speaking of a CalTrans inspector, “Wiles failed to properly conduct tests on the Bay Bridge’s new span and dozens of other bridges, fabricated results on at least three Caltrans projects, often discarded his raw data files and inflated his overtime pay.” What the author does not mention is the pressure from the construction industry on CalTrans and it’s inspectors. Corruption, while not rampant, does occur too frequently on CalTrans projects. I wonder how many envelopes Mr. Wiles received at Denny’s to influence his work ethic? I worked in the concrete industry for a decade, and could write a book on what I saw. A freeway interchange project near San Diego had to be halted when an inspector realized that the same x-rays had been submitted for welds in the caissons for multiple bridge columns. Pressure was being exerted in Sacramento to have the faulty work OK’d. If I recall, it took a San Diego reporter who was tipped-off to avoid the fix. I won’t go into the myriad problems that were not corrected on other projects, since I am not interested in appearing in court to defend myself. Some firms, such as Kiewit, had exacting standards and played by the book. Others cheated when they could. CalTrans inspectors who were too serious about their work could find themselves in Irwindale, testing aggregate at the bottom of an open pit mine, as did one I knew who was overly-conscientious (he rejected junk material that would not be considered for a public sidewalk). For the most part, the CalTrans people I interfaced with were skilled and tried to be honest. Unfortunately, the senior inspectors knew how far they could push contractors and suppliers, and chose not to be around when they were overruled on things such as rejection of substandard materials (to avoid reassignment). It was the regional and Sacramento CalTrans staff, and private industry, that were the rock and hard place between which these inspectors found themselves. If the private construction industry were allowed to regulate itself, as does the banking industry (sarcasm), I doubt there would be a highway bridge in the state meeting standards. With multiple companies working on a given project, it only takes one rotten firm to create a potential disaster. The next big earthquake will shake out the chaff on these projects.

My least favorite California government agency is the California Energy Commission. These people waste about $400 million a year on how to better control the citizens’ energy usage with nothing to show for it.

I once made the case that of that $400 million, only about $2.5 million was really worthwhile (the one stop siting approval process) – the rest was useless. Then it turns out that closing shop would not help reduce our state budget deficit!

Why? That $400 million comes from “users fees” on electricity and natural gas and was OFF-BUDGET!

Apparently, the real cost of state government is TWICE what the formal budget number is, what with all these special taxes and fees, dedicated to specific agencies and end-uses.

Who created the California Energy Commission? Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, in his first term.

California will never go broke, because there will always be socialist idiots in Washington willing to bail them out. This will especially be true if Obama (God forbid) gets re-elected. You really think he will allow California to go under? Dream on. Obama only sees California as a bigger General Motors, and if nobody stopped him from bailing them out, you can make sure that a liberal state like California will get its bailout too. Especially with all those “nice” Democratic hispanic voters (both legal and illegal). So California, in the long run, will have nothing to worry about.

California will never go bankrupt. There will always be some socialist fools in Washington that will be willing to bail it out. This will especially be true if Obama (God forbid) gets re-elected. Obama just sees California as a bigger General Motors, and if Obama didn’t let GM go under, do you really think he will allow California to go bankrupt, especially with all those Democratic hispanic voters (both legal and illegal)? Not a chance. California, in the long run, has nothing to worry about. But we’re the ones that are going to get stuck with the bill.

As a native Californian it is very sad to see this. I note however that California was not always this way and it was the mass migrations starting in the 70′s of people from other States and countries which coincide with our downfall. Up until Bill Clinton, California generally voted Republican. I will be leaving upon retirement.

AS the Manhattan Inst study notes Arizona is (and has been for a while) a primary destination – indeed recruiting disaffected Cali business has been a hallmark of conservative government here in the roughly 12 years since I became a former midwesterner (Ohio by way of Cleveland)

A couple of thoughts. Californication here in Arizona goes beyond professional leftists bussing in SEIU paid protesters when it comes to immigration rallies.

The former head of the Arizona Democratic Party, Andre Cherney (also a former Clinton Staffer), just this past primary lost in a congressional bid – to Kirsten Sinema (CD 9 – located in Phoenix).

Another example is how the Democrats in this state learned directly from California to ‘occupy’ the IRC – the independent redistricting commmission – passed in 2000 BY POPULAR BALLOT – doing so by ‘packing’ the commission (a feat the state Republican Party chief paid for with his own career – since he allowed them to so game it) – and once owning it hired Obama’s Washington favorite partisan demographers – Strategic Telemic – (with of course the blessings of Holders DOF concerning the Section V Voting Rights Act oversight) – to do something they had never done before – namely draw up congressional & and state legislative districts in a state subject to DOJ oversight via the voting rights act.

And what did we get? Unsurprisingly, congressional districts that were heavily jerimanded for ‘competitiveness – resulting in 4 SITTING REPUBLICANS having to to duke it out into TWO NEWLY DRAWN DISTRICTS.

While arguably the state legislative districts were mixed – with some Republican advantages and likewise other Dem advantages – VIRTUALLY NO ONE CONTENDS THE CONGRESSIONALS WERE ANYTHING BUT BLATANT DEMOCRAT PARTY ADVANTAGE. Just as the so-called ‘independent’ commission in Cali is a joke – it is likewise in Arizona – where at least we have not yet succommed to 30+ years of single party rule before voting it in. (And it may be up for a ballot reversal in either 2014 or 2016)

There were many other examples of how Janet Napolitano tried to implement her own version of californication when in the statehouse. But it can be summarized in concert with this authors post;

Through the so-called ‘popular ballot initiative’ – and through beauracratic stealth. In both instances the Democrat Party seeks to gain or grab power in ways better befitting a bannana republic dictatorship than through election via a representative republic.

I will close with this. Many former Californians move to Arizona to escape all the morass written about. But. Far too many fail to make the kind of political conversion once they get here. Some are delusional enough to believe they can transform our conservative paradise – built by the likes of Goldwater – into the kind of successful progressive paradise they believe once existed (and should) in California.

Well, they are wrong about that. And their are plenty of conservatives – those born and rasied here and those like me who since have come to call Arizona home – to prevent them from fouling up this neck of the desert either!

The leftist idiocracy already rules in Tucson ,the city having arguably the most inept ideological city government in the USA. Give it enough Californicators and the millions of illegals Obama legalizes and Arizona will sink into blue state ruin.

Every day I wake up and read or hear what else has gone “upside down” in the state I was born in (my parents were born here too) and it simply breaks my heart. The liberal left has had control of this state for 30 to 40 years and they have driven us from being number one or two in all good things to one of the worst states in the union. Businesses have left for greener pastures, we are number one (or nearly so, I haven’t seen the latest results) in the welfare roles, the state is quickly going bankrupt, many cities have already declared bankruptcy, here in the San Joaquin Valley our unemployment rate is double digit, our educational system is in shambles, and yet people keep voting the problem back into Sacramento.

I posted this elsewhere, on a blog about California’s energy policy. I’m just vain (and lazy) enough to think it’s germane here.

A Look Into California’s Future

1. California enacts a carbon tax.
2. California utilities shut down coal generating plants and build windmills and solar cells.
3. This reduces the reliable electrical generating capacity and increases the capital investment of California utilities. Brownouts and electrical imports (from, e.g. the coal-fired Four Corners power plant) increase. Rates go up to cover the cost of import power and bond interest. California’s emissions go down. Arizona’s emissions go up, but they are flyover country, so who cares.
4. The price of any good whose production requires a significant electrical energy input goes up. Manufacturing of product which requires a reliable energy source, e.g. semiconductors (a brownout can destroy an entire production run) leaves the state. Prices of manufacturers that stay go up. The energy demand of the producers that left disappears. California carbon emissions go down.
5. California consumers discover they can buy goods from out of state cheaper than from in state. They do so.
6. California enacts border-tax adjustments, adding a little lagniappe because the state needs money. California always needs money. Now out-of-state goods cost more than local goods, and both cost more than the same good purchased elsewhere. People’s purchases of goods, including electrical appliances, slow down. So do companies’ purchases of factors of production. California emissions decrease.

Here I believe two paths diverge:

7: Unable to purchase perfectly ordinary things for a reasonable amount, like a stove you can actually cook on, or pay for the electricity to run them if you do buy them, people begin to leave the state. Ditto manufacturers, who have to buy inputs and machinery for full list plus a “surcharge” if carbon is involved. California emissions go down.
8. State tax revenues decrease. The California Legislature raises tax rates.
9. The cycle repeats. California population and industry drops precipitously. California emissions go down. State tax revenues decrease. The California Legislature raises tax rates.
10, California population and production stabilize at the level of roughly 1864. Industry consists of orange and avocado growers, both carbon-neutral. State tax revenues stabilize. The California legislature raises tax rates once more for old times’ sake, declares victory over carbon and adjourns to Nevada since it’s no fun to live in California any more.

OR:

7. A substantial fraction of California’s population suddenly realizes they are being sold a bill of goods. Raising the banner of the Bear Flag Republic, they storm Sacramento and hang the entire Legislature to a sour apple tree, unfortunately creating the United States’ largest Superfund site. All legislation back to Reagan’s term as governor is nullified. Peace is restored when a nonagression treaty is signed with San Francisco. Industry cautiously begins to return. Maurauding mobs start up oil and coal power stations and topple eagle-mincing windmills. California emissions increase. Nobody notices.
8. The newly-elected California Legislature raises tax rates.

There are no coal-fired power plants within California. Historically that’s due to the cost of transport of coal from the good coal fields to the east of the Sierras but recently due to California laws and regulations. The state’s utilities are now forbiddened to BUY electricity from new, out of state coal and nuclear plants although certain existing contracts are allowed (Four Corners and Palo Verde for example.)

An operating coal plant near the AZ/CA border in Searchlight, NV was shutdown due to these restrictions. Proposed nuclear reactors in Idaho were abandoned since their intended market was California.

As to buying out of state, the state government has been trying REALLY hard to get Amazon.com to pay California sales tax on its business within the state – it’s been on-again, off-again so far. The Franchise Tax Board has been reaching out to former citizens who have moved out-of-state but kept bank accounts within the state by seizing their in-state bank accounts!

While they won’t trouble themselves to keep poor, service-sucking immigrants out, they would LOVE to keep their taxpayers in!

You may recall, how long ago,
We came from far and wide.
To toil in a garden rich and ripe,
Blessed with a temperate clime.
It seemed the “very best of Earth”,
Kissed by Heaven for all time.

From the soaring peaks of mountains,
To the glistening seas and bays,
Honest sweat and honest living,
Made an Eden for our days.
And we never did imagine,
It could ever go away.

Amidst the plenty and prosperity,
So-called “leaders” rose to rule.
They wore a swindler’s kindly face,
But within were cold and cruel.
They wielded awesome power and might—
Crass patronage* their tool.

The “liberality” of these monarchs,
Over time took a hideous toll.
The fisc** was raped for the socialists’ sake
And the people lost their soul.
From “we can earn” to “we are owed”,
Our zeal was replaced by the dole.

Our state now poor, our citizens weak,
A cloud now covers our land.
Where water once flowed, a tiny fish,
Now rules at the monarchs’ command.
And over all, an “entitlement” scourge,
Compels us make a stand.

We are “led” by Democrat dinosaurs,
Who have betrayed their public trust.
They deny they owe us anything,
But the right to govern in lust,
For eternal power and unearned praise—
AND STOP THEM NOW, WE MUST.

* Patronage = the distribution of jobs, power, and favors on a political basis, as to those who have supported one’s party or political campaign. See also, Demo Rat Machine.

I have lived in California for more than 20 years. If I could, I would have left it long ago. Most of my poems are upbeat; optimistic; even joyful in support of patriotism and America. I HAVE NO HOPE FOR MY HOME STATE.
Only a “paradigm” shift of terrible dimensions (e.g., earthquake) might provide the “I don’t know what” we need. I rarely feel despair, but when I ponder this heaven blessed state’s descent into graft and greed and socialism I am challenged to pray for my fellows here, other than to say: “May God have mercy on our souls.” If I were a drinking man, I would get BLASTED right now.

Good read Bookworm, but I can’t take too much more real-life dystopia (the actual book). CA worries me, a lot. I am certain that that far away land will be pulling plenty of money from the rest of us enablers; we’ll bail ‘em out. And, businesses / localities keep biting off CA’s leftism as an enlightened forward.

Does IL collapse before CA? Does RI get annexed by NY? Does TX tell the rest of us to piss off before we devour them? Who knows. But for all of the sustainability statist-blathering, nobody of that ilk can make the leap that they’ve eaten (and pooped out) the golden goose – long ago.

The State of California, and other libtard basket cases like Illinois and Michigan, are particularly dangerous because their economic and political dysfunction threatens the viability of America’s federal union. Normally intelligent, honest, hard-working citizens in other states with responsible governments are not going to pay for these idiots’ drooling insanities.

Communists like Obama, who identifies with such fools because he is one, use the federal government to discriminate in favor of his moron constituencies. The Democrat Party is no more than a gang of political looters. We see where this leads, in Greece and Spain. The only solution is to cut the parasites off, leaving them to drown in the fever swamp of their infantile stupidities. This problem transcends ideology; it is a matter of practical self-defense against armed robbers in police uniforms. In my opinion, President Romney will perceive the danger and act as he must, in the long-term interest of all the people.

Before hiring my car during a week long visit to L.A., I took the option of insuring myself to the hilt so I wouldn’t be a burden to anyone else, or be burdened myself in the event of a mishap. When I came to settle the bill, I queried the charge which was above what I was originally quoted before I took out the extra insurance. The manager of the branch office explained to me it was a tax, and went through how it was distributed amongst various state government agencies.
“In other words,” I said, “because I did the responsible thing and increased my insurance, the state taxed me more.”
“Yes.”

It’s not just California and places scenic enough to attract its leftist refugees fleeing the disasters they’ve wrought. I live in a rather dull and uninteresting little state that will vote Romney +15, at a minimum, this fall and yet the Californication of our state is proceeding apace. The regulatory schemes already in place here are draconian enough to ensure that we’ll follow California eventually. The difference being that our bureaucrats are not yet so removed from the taxpayers that they’ve forgotten who funds their paychecks; the net result being that the most asinine laws are watered down in the agencies until they do only moderate damage to the state’s business base. Enforce the laws as-written and we’d morph into California tomorrow.

How about this: any state that goes bankrupt reverts to territory status. All state offices are voided, its congressmen and senators are recalled, and Washington appoints a territorial governor. Territory status remains in force until the state produces a balanced budget for five consecutive years.

If they’re not adult enough to manage their affairs, void the entire state system and start over.

Comments on wagnerts post –
- California doesn’t have coal-fired generating plants anymore. There were a few a very long time ago but they were shut down in the 1930′s. There has never been enough coal here or anywhere nearby to make these a viable in California. California electric generation is nearly all hydro, natural gas, and nuclear. We do wheel in some electricity from Arizona, which has a large coal plant, but thats not subject to California regulation.
- California electric rates are extremely high already. Multiple causes, mainly due to regulation.
- There is no likelihood of electric generation shortages in California at this rate. Electric consumption is down with the economy, and likely to continue to fall. Any shortages, if ever, unlikely as it may seem, will be covered by natural gas plants which are cheap and easy to build, or by purchases from out of state.
- #4,5, and 6 have happened and are ongoing, in the case of manufacturing the process is nearing completion. Mainly not due to energy costs but with all the other regulatory effects on the cost of doing business. California already tries, ineffectually, to collect sales taxes, etc. from “imports” from other states.
- #7,8, and 9 are likewise also ongoing.

I only care about California inasmuch as many are moving here to Texas and bringing their craziness with them. It all should be left at the state line. Beyond that, I don’t give a wit about that loony state. They did it to themselves and are making no effort to change.

California will not change until it hits absolute rock bottom. Fortunately 4 more years of Obama WILL deliver hyper-inflationary collapse of the US dollar into zimbucks.

A few years of mass starvation, FEMA camp galugs, low intensity civil war and the occasional 9-11 level of random slaughter via Jihadi’s sponsored by the gulf states and equiped by China should be enough to drive home the fact that socialism ALWAYS fails because you run out of other peoples money.

Alternatively you can follow Argentina’s example and replay the entire sorry saga every decade or so until you figure it out or the country falls off the cliff and is taken over by China.

Moises Velasquez-Manoff argues in “An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases” that when a body is not exposed to germs its immune system turns upon itself, causing all sorts of diseases.

When liberals run out of good causes, they don’t stop fighting. Instead, they just keep looking for enemies, and thus destroy the society that they claim to love.

noticed that liberalism seems to run on a not-so-suppressed and sublimated neurotic hatred of your own parents. Why so many people over the last century or so started hating their parents is an open question…

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the main reason California is ungovernable resides in those ballot proposals. That’s why, “as California goes, so is the nation” won’t happen, as those ballot proposals don’t exist in most states, and certainly not at the federal level.

The problem is CA was blessed with the best weather and land in the country. This means conservativess like me “consider” moving there no matter how bad things are. NYS is the same thanks to NYC, the most vibrant and exciting city in America. I LOVE Texas, but the cities SUCKthe land is flat and dead and the weather is tough. Same with most of the South.

CA immigrants, have now ruined our state too. Liberal progressive jews from CA and NY, found Montana, our beautiful mountain state and right away started to change things. Its a pecular thing with them, like a restlessness, if thing go too well. I know I used to live in CA and I am jewish, I know what I am talking about. Why are most of them, my family included, leftwing radicals? They dont even support Israel. They support 0bama, and dont care that he disrespected Netanyahu and didnt even want to meet with him.

As a Californian, let me share a few random stories from the past 2 years I experienced. I live near SF but was searching for land in the central valley to buy. I went there. What I saw shocked me beyond belief. Poverty unlike anything I have seen in America. It looked in some places to be like the shanty town slums of India. This state has more liberal social programs than any other state and huge swaths of the population lives in poverty so dire, I cannot believe what I saw. So I bought property in rural north. Turns out it is surrounded by people growing and making drugs. The drug use and addiction, especially meth, is out of control. And if you are unaware, meth users in withdrawl get psychotic. If a meth user robs you he may also take your life. These people are everywhere. In my “safe” upper middle class neighborhood someone tried to break in twice in two months. My neighbors up the street a few months later were not so lucky, they got in and robbed them. My street has almost every house with security systems now in desperation. And this is the safe area. Finally, in the liberal mecca of San Fran, you will find it is a segregated city, few blacks live there. They have to live in Oakland. Oakland is a war zone with crime. We have the highest taxes in the nation and Oakland is cutting back on the police due to the waste of tax payer funds. But their proposal is to raise taxes more. I can reassure you that it will not be spent on more police for Oakland. We have a nice new high speed rail project that will consume $100 billion. You know, I know, that those increased taxes will not put more police on the street to protect the people of Oakland. The CA budget is some $80 billion total. Those taxes will HAVE to pay for the high speed rail. The people in poverty, the victims of crime will have to find their own way because the liberals have their priorities, of which safety, poverty and diverse cities are not at the top of that list. California has become a one party state, Democratic, and the result has been a socially unstable dangerous place to live.

California the Golden state, Obama and the Democrats model for American future, is fast becoming the poster child for an bankrupt third world State!

An unholy alliance of Socialist Democrat politicians, Unions, Left wing loony,s and Illegal Aliens supporters are feasting like hogs at the trough of tax payers paid benefits while taxing & regulating business and the tax paying public into poverty.

The corruption and pandering of Left Wing Democrat Politicians to their constituency of Unions, Illegal Aliens and open border supporters, are driving business and citizens to other states & countries, while leaving the parasites, welfare leeches and Hollywood perverts in an increasing bankrupt, crime ridden, dysfunctional state!

For years California has ignored economics 101 and imported Criminals, Uneducated fast breeding Parasites, and poverty from Mexico, which increased Medical, Welfare, Crime, Prison, etc. & adding a estimated 22 billion per year to Calif. State expense to support the invading horde of Illegal Aliens while exporting business and educated tax payers.

Like all Socialist countries the results have been a astronomical increase in social welfare, schooling, prison cost etc. and a lowing of Living standards, Heath care, Education standards, Tax receipts & finally Bankruptcy.

The policies of Comrade Obama and Wash. DC Democrats are intent on following Calif. policies and Pro-Illegal Aliens, Pro-Unions and Anti-tax paying citizens and are endorsing the same socialist process of rewarding the Corrupt, Stupid, Foolish, Lazy, Greedy & Criminal while punishing the responsible, honest, law abiding citizens of American.

Failure to abide by our Constitution against invasion & enforce our Immigration laws and constraints on wages and benefits for public employees will result in turning the Golden State into MexiCalif and the end of the Calif. Dream and the beginning of the MexiCalif. Nightmare!

Amnesty & Citizenship as a reward for their invasion of the USA, with chain immigration will result in the rest of the USA turned into a Spanish speaking third world cesspool and follow California into a polluted, over populated, Spanish speaking, third world Slum of Crime, Corruption, Poverty, Cruelly & Misery modeled on Mexico!

This will result in a population depending on Welfare and the Democrat party, thus assuring the lock on power for the Socialist Democrat party of the United States of Mexico!

There would be hope if this was a scam put over on the people. It isn’t–all these crazies Pelosi, et.al. were voted in, by comfortable margins. Moonbeam won by ten pts over a perfectly reasonable, middle of the road, successful businesswoman. It wasn’t even close–Brown didn’t really break a sweat.

The problem here is that people that understand the problem have given up and are leaving in droves. Only the takers stay or come here–the makers are leaving or have left.

No hope. Don’t waste time thinking about “solutions”; the effort should be spent trying to figure out what happens when it collapses.

I have watched Moonbeam and his crew destroy the state for going on 40 years since I moved here in the 70s. I would have gotten out long ago, but I am trapped by family obligations. From experience I can tell you that as bad as the Obamunists are, nothing comes close to the stupidity, the evil, and the destructive power of a California bureaucrat. Without question, Caltrans is the world’s #1 worst public construction agency. In nearly 40 years, it’s difficult to find one place where they have accomplished anything. You could get rid of 200,000 CAlifornia bureaucrats and no one would even notice, because they spend all their time making sure the other bureaucrats don’t do anything. And lawyers. California has more bloodsucking lawyers per square foot than anywhere else on earth. There is no saving this hellhole. Get out if you can.

Interesting…no one discusses how the so called “tax-reformist” helped pass Prop 13 that decimated local school districts…what is curious to me is all the haters out there…California will continue its leadership in industry for a long time…there is a reason why CA has a public college educational system second to none, not to mention the myriad of private institution that are the envy of the world…Silicon Valley, enough said…Breadbasket to the nation, and not to mention the weather… Sure CA has its problems, like all state, but I will never leave this state.

Actually what is happening in California is an absolute win win for the Democrats. As California continues its downward spiral many people are leaving the State and solidifying the Democratic Party’s hold on those who remain and the 59 electoral votes. The people who are moving (like roaches) to Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico are some of the same idiots who voted for these failed policies in California and now are voting in AZ, NV and NM for the same failed policies and politicians, thereby guaranteeing a Democratic majority in those States. It already is a fact in Nevada and New Mexico. Arizona is 4-8 years away.

The piece de resistance of the California pathology is the High Speed Railway project. I won’t go into the absurdity of this because you already know it. Suffice to say that it’ll cost 2x to 3x what they say and will burden the state with (in current dollars) at least $10B per year in deficits. Talk about a stake in the heart. If it wasn’t for the weather and family I’d be long gone.

We are doing just fine in California, thank you. Once all the republicans have left the state and moved to Texas we will do even better.

Statistically most red states are like leeches on the country – unlike California which contributes more than it receives in return, most red states are recipients of federal aid far exceeding what they contribute in revenues and taxes.

I’m 59 and have lived in California for the last 54 years. Ever since I started reading national newspapers I’ve been reading stories about how bad things are in California. All the negative press was based on cherry picking a few negative details and leaving out all the positive. This article is no different from all its predecessors. The whole truth is very different. For instance, how many readers outside of California are aware that population of this state grew at the same rate as the rest of the USA in the 2010 census? How many red state readers are aware that Californians pay more taxes to the federal government that is returned to Calif? How many of these red staters know that the federal government sends many of red states more money than then they paid to the IRS? California would BENEFIT from secession!

It is the corrupted politicians and legislators. They are destroying the State. All you have to do is follow the $$ to see why some crazy legislation or regulation is being implemented. Any other place the people would storm the legislative buildings and arrest the thieves.

California will become a red state after the collapse because the levels of poverty will change the states tune I predict riots 100 times the size of 1992 la when it happens.the death toll of this easily preventable tragedy will shock the nation.I even see it possible for California to break up into 3 new states.the collapse is inevitableqw.ad is Americas if

Blaming California for its mess, much which is due to massive and endless government dependent immigrataion, while omitting any mention of immigration as an issue, is no different behavior from the Californians the author is trying to disparage. The fact the author refuses to even mention briefly the giant elephant in the room, tells us what the real problem is, and makes him as guilty as the rest.

Our family left SoCal in 1990. We go back several times a year to visit with friends and relatives.

Still a beautiful state from a climate and resources point of view, but I get the distinct feeling from most of the folks I interact with that they are grimly soldiering on, like cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse. A remarkable transformation from the California of my youth, so full of promise and industriousness.

I have to feel sympathy for the (few) commenters here who angrily proclaim things are just dandy over there. Like frogs in warming water, they are oblivious to the slow changes and will suffer the same fate.

The sad situation for critics of Crazifornia is their own Crazifornia-like failure to recognize that all the matters mentioned are merely symptoms of what happens when such fools turn their backs on God and pretend they can get away without repercussions, the reason why as Crazifornia goes, so goes the nation. Our Founders made it plain they established a CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC, not the secular democracy GOP & Dem fools alike pretend, and that it was only sufficient to govern a CHRISTAIN people, this being the sole reason for the sucess of our nation. The reason why “conservatives” are at least as guilty as the “liberals” they decry in destroying our nation is their manifest complicity with them in ignoraning this irrefutable historical fact with their shared historical (and Biblical) illiteracy they share with “liberals,” subjugated by today’s lawless fasdist tyrants seeking to destroy and sodomize America. God save us.

“A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it. Universal suffrage is not only a detestable element of government, but it is a powerful revolutionary instrument.”-
Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859, author of Democracy in America

What is worse than the one-half of voters who do not pay taxes or in fact are subsidized by taxpayers is the low quality of debate that it constantly draws the elective political class toward. What cannot be spoken eventually places limits on what can be thought.

I live in California, I see no hope. In the last election, we voted down an $18.00 fee on our auto registration to save our state parks. In the meantime we handed over complete control of the state at every level to the Progressives, including three huge, destruction tax and spend bills. The WSJ wrote an editorial about those three bills, calling them a catastrophe.

Just on the Loma Prieta: It took ten years, TEN years to re-open the damaged section of the Cypress Freeway.

Meantime, in L.A., the next earthquake shut down all of their major freeways – all of them, and Caltrans had the sense to hire Myers, the genous of private enterprise. and in four months, while not completely finished, all the freeways were open for business, some of them with days of the earthquake.

Northern California, especially, has been in the complete control of the unions for the thirty years I have lived here – think San Francisco Inter. Airport and the endless “Parking Garage” construction. Years. Meantime, Phoenix built an entire new terminal.

We are in a dead heat for last with Mississippi in education, and people seem oblivious. Our 385,000 teachers’ union, with the cooperation of locally elected school boards, completely dominate the education process and ensure that no reform will take place, In my district, Pleasanton, many teachers will violate state law all during this election season by telling impressionable students how great Obama is, and how bad Conservatives are. Little education takes place, Illegal, but then so what?

Just like the nation, with ungrateful ignorant voters putting a despicable person such as Obama in office, the voters in this state are ultimately responsible. Altho I have to point out that our endless propositions on the ballots, asking us to vote on as many as 25, often conflicting one, are yet another example of poor government and lack of anything but self-serving action on the part of the legislature, controlled for six decades by democrats. In the last election voters out did themselves, and instead of just a majority with some Republican opposition to slow them down, we handed the Democrats complete control of the state. They get to take ALL the credit, they own the state.